Disabled people "are not allowed to breed"

[QueenEagle]

Is a phrase I heard this evening in the pub.

Is it true that disabled adults ie those with learning difficulties (such as Downs I assume) are not allowed to have a sexual relationship or have children?

Is this really true or have I been subjected to an individual's bigoted views?? And if it is true, says who?? And how on earth can anything like this be enforced??

Fio2, in our discussions with SS/care providers when the girls entered the care enviroment 18m ago after leaving home on this subject, we were told it would be very difficult to enforce contraceptives on an unwilling/unable to fully understand and give consent LD person, it would have to be extensivily documented that not to be on prevention was detrimental to their health.

We are constantly reminded they are 27 & 31 so must be given the same rights as a NT person which in our opinion is pure tosh.

The girls especially the older one are unable to make age appropriate decisions in many life happenings, the younger one had taken to stealing chocolate bars at work, they got the police in to 'talk' to her!!, we have always taught her to go to a policeman should they lose us/get lost when shopping/frightened etc so it made no impression on her, her carers talks had no impact, she knew they could do nothing, but having lived with me, [as her sister] i carried thru my promise of confiscation of fav'd cd's and many stern talks and bingo no more stealing, return of cd's on the understanding it never happened again.

In our opinion they should be given choices in direct relation to their understanding and have consquences to any inappropriate actions as adults as they did when under 18y of age.

But we are told that is not PC and furthur more is an infingement of their human rights, our response was prisoners experience consquences if they misbehave but our girls can do anything and there are no consquences, both girls understand that after 26 & 30 years of rules & consquences that now those rules are still there but the consquences have gone and so the rules have no real purpose should they not follow them.

When I was an LSA for LD students I was surprised atteh lack of sex education available to them even at an appropriate level although many wre experience feelings etc related to puberty and growing up (all students were 16+)
It was mainly teh aprents and carers who objected to this. I think with enough info to make an informed decision then why not after not talking or communicating about these things makes abuse easier to commit and hide. Peope with LD should obviously be treated with respect adn dignity and given the chance to live as tehy wish so long as they are not at risk to themselves or others

Prufrock- matnanplus is right- nowadays the idea is to get the consent from the adult with LD- whether or not they understand is a different issue.

The thought of having no say when he gets to 18 terrifies me to be honest. I don';t trust SS to be capable of making the right decision for him, which makes me want to keep him at home- but then what happens when I die? My hope (and it is pie in the sky) is that he will become capable enough to be able to make sensible decisions with minimal support for daily living. Like I said pie in the sky.

That's so sad, Jimjams.

And when you have a son, you can't choose contraception for a worst case scenario. I have been to lectures where sexuality is talked about and "teaching" how to masturbate and trying to draw the line. But the thought that DS could unknowingly sexually abuse someone because he doesn't understand doesn't bear thinking about, never mind someone abusing him

My sister in law with learning disabilities had a coil fitted - I'm sure that it was explained to her in very basic terms and it was something that my in-laws sorted out, but that would have been 15 years ago now.

Agreed davros- that terrifies me as well. masturbation I can cope with - and I'm sure we can teach him "your bedroom only" as a rule, but the idea of him wanting someone else. Oh god.

Something I felt very sad about on thet Spa school programme was the aspie boy who wanted a girlfriend from his swimming group. I felt he was very vulnerable and very likely to get it completey wrong leading to a huge mess that he wouldn't understand at all.

earlier i was going to post how frightened I feel that dd would be sexually abused as she is so vulnerable and then i thought how it might offend you with boys. i never even thought of the flip side. Forgive me and thank goodness for mumsnet! Its all very scarey isnt it? one more thing to worry about. That and the fact my dd only 'likes' boys and recites all her male classmates and none of the girls ...... hopefully she will get aboyfrieend out of one of them as they are all lovely (pie in the sky? hey jimjams?)

and mantanplus, i can only half begin to understand what that must feel like. it must be sooo bloody frustrating

Fio2, it is.

all we can do is rely on the care team, who at this moment are a good bunch.

The 'worry' is taht the on/off boyfriend is fully aware of it all, where asshe isn't, she had sex ed at SN school/college, but in a way you don't want to bring it up all the time as she might get really interested and we know that the big picture is not something she could fully understand, luckly she has 2 periods max a year.

With the older one, it would be very easy fro abuse to happen as she is afasic thru choice [non-verbal] and has challenging behaviours anyway, she is not able to participate in discussions, she'll say 'yeah' if she thinks that what you want her to say.

As we pointed out to an uninformed person, you don't tend to ask questions you want a negitive answer to, in consquence they are used to replying positively to any question put to them.

The older one will repeat the last option given to her even if you the change the order 80% of the time the last item mentioned is her reply, how can that be informed consent, tho some like to think she is making a choice[in their dreams].

Really scary - and something I bury my head in the sand about with regard dd. But I am pretty much where dottee is too. I think it highly unlikely that my dd will ever have the capacity to understand the issues or to make an informed choice.

I think the human rights issue is difficult but where you have a person who is not capable of making a decision themself I believe that the decison can still be made on their behalf while respecting them as a person. Does that make sense?

yes!

its that we are parents are often interpreters for our children (and other people!) and we still respect their wishes iykwim. it is hard to explain....

It makes sense 'heartinthecountry' but is i have found very hard to put into practise.

the current thinking is they should be given the exact same chioces as a NT adult, which is often just not appropriate to their abilties, but there again was told by a 2nd year post qualification psychologist that she 'knew' my sister better than i did after she seeing her for 6hrs and my living with her for 30y!! go figure.

i am regularly reminded she is an adult now so needs to make her own decisions, umm.... boll**ks she can't read, won't talk, refuses to sign and throws humdinging tantrums {physically attacks herself, hits out, grunts}, yep adult behaviour for sure, she is a little girl in an adults body, she likes large piece jigsaws, abba type music, lining up playing cards and having everything 'just so'{she has OCD}. The sooner this is accepted then the easier it will be for our SN loved ones to enjoy their lives without unrealistic expectations being put in their way.

This sort of thing crops up again and again in mental health issues. MIL has good friends who have an adult dd with schizophrenia. They want her to have as much independence as she can cope with....they are in their 70s and she is in her early 40s. Her social workers keep saying that they cannot force her to take her meds, she is an adult, she has rights etc.

She doesn't like some of the side effects, stops taking the meds, has a full blown scizophrenic incident, and her poor parents are left to pick up the pieces....yet again. the social workers make sympathetic noises but say that she has yje 'right' to make decisions for heeslef.

It is an awful situation. While I agree that people have human rights sometimes they can't cope with the reposnibility that these rights involve

oh fgs, how is that helping anybody???lettuing her not take her meds, that is just sick and quite twisted IMO

I mean why dont they just use common sense when it needs to be applied

The majority of learning disabilities are not hereditary (I am fairly sure that people with downs syndrome are infertile due to the chromasomal abnormality and so would not need contraception).

I think everybody should be strongly encouraged to take advantage of contraception unless they are actively trying for a baby.

I would hope that any person who was in a non abusive adult relationship would be allowed to have a full sexual relationship. As for children I would hope that they would be helped to have and enjoy a family if at all possible. If there is no way they would be allowed to keep their baby they should be told at the outset.

EXACTLY fio- and exactly what roz blackburn (severely autistic adult) said- people lose their common sense

Exactly happymerryberries, they are not there to really deal with the fallout or the emotional trauma we as those closest to them suffer as their life is disrupted.

I am all for those who can make realistic choices being given that chance, but then they will have been 'able' to make those choices for a long time.

But they also expect someone who can't make them to suddenly be able to now they are away from any
'smothering' enviroment.

We were accused of not letting the girls grow up, i beg to differ, it is not smothering to not let them walk to the shops when they have less road awareness than the cat!, or not allow them to carry a full teapot to the table when, to do so would take all their attention so to not spilling any and it would mean they walked into the wall, remind them of the wall they spill tea on themselves!

I gave the girls the level of responsibility they could comfortably deal with, the same respect as my family and friends, but i am realistic as to their abilities, you would make the same judgements with a NT toddler, at 2y can do x, at 3y can do y, at 4y can do much more.

Fio, I so agree. The parents are beside themselves, and tbh are getting too old to cope with this sort of thing.

The attitue of the social workers is that to insist that she takes her meds is demeaning to her and an adult and strips her of her 'rights'. Wheras common sense would dictate that she cannot know what is best for her in some circumstances. She comes off her meds and ends up in an awful state and somehow that isn't seen as 'Demeaning'. Crazy isn't it?

matnanplus, and ffs wouldn't you just love to be able to let them grow up? Honestly! some people have no flaming common sense do they?
How can they know better than you? You have to deal with it 24/7!

Happymerryberries, could she have a contract to take her meds with a reward at the end, some could say that is bribary and inapropriate for an adult, but it is clear she doesn't have the understanding of why no meds = meltdown, why won't the ?professionals? listen to us, the ones that know them the best. The ones with their happiness and best interests at heart, call me cynical but we're not getting paid££ to do it,we do it for love and get paid in smiles and hugs.

I have also known bipolar depressives who have got into awful situations when they refuse to take their meds.

They feel great when in the manic phase but the family cops the fall out and they know that the patient will come crashing down at the end of the manic phase.

Patients rights are a wonderful idea but have to be tempered with common sense when there are cognitive/behavioural issues.

But happyberrymerries they are the professional and know better cos they've had book learning, we just learnt on the job, an inferior learning method in their eyes it seems.

where do they think the book information came from the the first place.

too right they've been on a days course. Honestly the only professionals I trust the opinion of are the ones who have daily hands on experience. otherwise they generally haven't got a clue.